


christmas (and other crises)

by coerulus



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Gen, I Saw Mommy Kissing Claus (Song), i was supposed to be studying for a test but instead i wrote almost 2k words worth of crackfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 00:02:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9689630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coerulus/pseuds/coerulus
Summary: “That’s not what I wanted to talk to you two about,” Keith says, waving a hand and pointing dramatically at a board lined in red and green lights. “This.”Pidge pushes their glasses up their nose and peers at the board, eyes darting from picture to picture, noting the tinsel garland lining the top. “You…want to prove Santa Claus is real?”





	

“He couldn’t have just _asked_ me to get in his bedroom?” Lance groans to Pidge, picking off bits of post-it note from his tongue. “What kind of weirdo asks for that with a post-it in your food goo? And what ‘important information’ could he have? And why didn’t Hunk and Shiro get an invite?”

Pidge shrugs, unwrapping a candy cane and pulling another out of their pocket to hand to Lance. He takes it and starts angrily sucking on the straight end, the other hand jammed in his hoodie pocket.

They find Keith nervously looking this way and that outside his room, arms folded across his chest. He hurriedly ushers Lance and Pidge into his room without any warning and carefully shuts the door behind them.

“Why are we having a secret meeting? And where are Hunk and Shiro?”

“One, I need to tell you both something, and two, I didn’t want to bother either of them. I need an elite task force. Hunk doesn’t like confrontation, and this mission might involve exactly that. And Shiro’s still not really out of the woods from that slice on his ribs.” Keith presses his fingertips together and sits on a black swivel chair, rotating a few degrees this way and that.

“What’s all this about?” Lance asks, gesturing to the many yards of red string knotted around multicolored pushpins that have been violently jammed into corkboard that basically covers his entire room. “We already shot down your Mothman theory and that giant hollow in the road was caused by a car accident, not Bigfoot—”

“That’s not what I wanted to talk to you two about,” Keith says, waving a hand and pointing dramatically at a board lined in red and green lights. “This.”

Pidge pushes their glasses up their nose and peers at the board, eyes darting from picture to picture, noting the tinsel garland lining the top. “You…want to prove Santa Claus is real?”

Keith nods solemnly.

“Aw, you still believe in Santa,” Lance teases, smirking.

“Yes! He’s _real_ ,” Keith insists, gesticulating indignantly.

“What did you put in his hot cocoa?” Pidge asks, looking up at Lance with an expression that’s half exasperation, half evil maniac, all the while popping Christmas M&Ms in their mouth.

“Nothing, I swear!”

Keith ignores the jab at his paranoia and continues his spiel. “Okay. So we all know the basics of the Santa Claus legend, right? Bearded man wearing a red suit sneaks down the chimneys of children in the night to deliver presents for Christmas Day.” They nod. “Given the weight of his sled, the number of reindeer he has, the distance he needs to fly, and the amount of time spent consuming the cookies that the children lay out for him, he can’t possibly get around the world to all the believers in one night by just flying around. He has to have some help.”

“So what are you trying to say?” Pidge asks, stirring a candy cane in a cup of hot cocoa.

“Allura told me about an old myth about an Altean named San der Closs. He did more or less the same thing as what our Santa did. In fact, Santa may not have been fat, as this guy,” he says, pointing to a black and white photo of Thomas Nast, “is responsible for the picture of Santa we know today. He’s probably never seen an Altean before.”

“So that would explain the white hair, and the strength to carry all those presents around…” Pidge says slowly, dropping the candy cane into their hot chocolate.

“Exactly,” Keith says, his finger following another string to a clear pushpin. “And to get around so quickly—”

“—they use wormholes!” Lance exclaims. “Keith, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but that’s pretty smart.”

“Big surprise there,” Keith mutters. “There’s more to it.” He waves at a picture of a deformed mark on what looks suspiciously to be human flesh. “This is an autopsy of someone’s grandmother. Forensics believe she had been drinking too much eggnog and staggered out into the snow. If you ask me, these are pretty incriminating Claus—I mean, claw marks on her back.”

“What is _this_ supposed to mean?” Pidge asks, jabbing their index finger at a picture of San der Closs with a halo of red Sharpie hearts and frantic question marks around his head.

“A man named Thomas Connor claims to have seen his mother kissing San der Closs under their Christmas tree when he was a young child,” Keith says. “He’s been mocked by many, but I think there might be something.”

Lance taps the sharpened end of his candy cane on his lip. “And how are you going to prove it? I don’t think the castle has a chimney.”

“No,” Keith agrees, “but there’s a concealed hatch in the ceiling in the control room, which is coincidentally right where we set up the Christmas tree. This is where we’re going to need Pidge.

“If we want to catch this guy, we’re going to need something to muffle our footsteps, a good video recorder, and proper gear.” He tosses black cotton bandanas with a white design along its border to them.

Lance recoils. “They smell like horse hair!”

“I lived on a ranch.”

“Are there no washing machines on your ranch?”

“Look, unless you’ve got something better, we’re wearing the bandanas!” Lance pouts, mumbling about poor hygiene and breaking out.

“Are we going to actually catch this guy or just have footage of him?” Pidge fishes in their cup to find the AWOL candy cane. “I suppose I could hack his sleigh and leave him stranded…”

Keith shakes his head. “It’s made from magic. San der Closs is a little…old fashioned. And I don’t think we can catch him.”

“Aw, c’mon,” Lance says. “We can take him. One on two, easy.”

“You mean one on three?” Pidge asks.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t count you. You know, being under five feet and all.”

“I can still fight!” Pidge nearly shrieks.

“Okay,” Lance concedes, “one on two plus Pidge.”

At the intensity Pidge is glowering at Lance, Keith frankly considers it a miracle that all of his hair follicles are intact.

“Any other questions?”

They shake their head solemnly.

“Okay. Pidge, get the best video recorder you have. Oh, and three pairs of hi-strength binoculars. Meet outside my room tonight at eleven.”

Keith stares at the arrows, the post it notes, the grainy photographs and the miles of string. Tonight, he would finally prove the existence of the elusive Santa Claus.

…

“Okay,” Keith whispers, “equipment check. Pidge?”

Pidge holds up their recorder and three pairs of hi-strength binoculars, as requested.

“Okay, let’s get going.”

“Keith, wait. Where’s Lance?”

After a ten minute delay, Keith drags Lance in all his blue-lion-pajama-and-face-mask glory down the hallway, all while Lance complains about lack of beauty rest.

“Shut up and put your bandana on,” Keith whisper shouts. Lance grumpily obliges, tying an angry knot at the back of his head.

As silently as humanly was possible, they creep past the sliding doors and hide behind a large console and turn off its holographic projection for a clear view of the tree and the hidden hatch Keith mentioned earlier. Hunk’s Christmas cookies lie out in the open on the table, (“perfect bait for San der Closs,” Keith commented), and the Christmas tree is devoid of any presents.

The doors open.

“Hide!” Keith hisses, yanking Lance and Pidge down by their collars. One by one, they poke their heads out from behind the console, where, lo and behold, a tall man in a red suit walks through.

“I thought you said he came down the chimney!” Lance snaps. Keith clamps a hand over his bandana covered mouth.

“Me too,” he whispers. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he just…walks through the front door. Look, there’s his sack of presents.”

The man leans over and unties the knot in his burlap bag and starts lifting out wrapped gifts, one by one. The fabric of his suit stretches over his shoulder and back muscles.

“I know Alteans are supposed to be fit, but _man_ , this guy’s been hitting the protein,” Lance whispers. He uses his binoculars to focus in on the man’s muscles. “I can’t get a visual on him.”

“Well, we can’t _move_ ,” Keith says. “He’ll see us!” The man starts walking in their direction. “Quick, get down!”

With his back still turned towards Keith, Lance, and Pidge, he picks up a Christmas cookie and examines it, before taking a bite and nodding in apparent satisfaction. The doors slide open again, and this time, Allura walks in, wearing a fluffy white robe over her silk pajamas.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” she says to the man.

He chuckles. “Neither did I, Princess.”

The three look at each other. Something about the timbre of his voice is jarringly familiar, but they can’t place it.

The man moves towards the Christmas tree, towards Allura, and farther away from them. Allura stands on her tiptoes to place a kiss on the man’s cheek, and he pulls her closer with an arm around her waist.

Lance and Pidge look at Keith, wide eyed, who stares right back in equivalent shock.

“You didn’t tell me Allura’s dating Santa!” Lance whisper screams. “That’s it! Allura’s the mom from the song!”

“I didn’t know!” Keith whisper screams back. “So…that means Thomas Connor…is Allura’s son?”

“Shut up! He’s turning around!” Pidge cranes their neck around the console, and Keith and Lance follow suit, making a neat stack of heads peeking out from behind the console’s edge.

“I mean, it’s everyone’s first Christmas away from Earth, so I…I thought I’d do something to make up for that,” ‘Santa’ says. “Coran gave me some red cloth, and I just made some presents for everyone. They’re not really big, but Christmas without presents is unheard of.”

“That’s sweet of you,” Allura says, leaning in closer towards the man. Lance makes a slightly strangled noise in the back of his throat.

“Santa’s been in a couple of fights recently,” Pidge notes. “Look. He’s got a scar on the bridge of his nose, and the glove on his right hand shows a prosthetic. Wait…that white hair…” Pidge pulls up a quick facial recognition scanner and tries to angle the device so it catches at least a side profile of the man.

“A prosthetic arm?” Lance and Keith cry at the same time. Lance snatches his binoculars and props his elbow on Pidge, eliciting a grunt of pain from them.

“You Earthlings are really quite sweet at times,” Allura comments.

“I didn’t know what to get you, but um, I hope you like it,” the man says, planting a kiss on Allura’s forehead and slowly turning her around.

“Stop,” she whispers, giggling. “Imagine what Coran and the others would say, if they saw me kissing Santa Claus underneath the mistletoe.”

“Facial scan complete,” Pidge’s devices informs them quietly. “Identification: Takashi Shirogane.”

Keith, Lance, and Pidge stare at each other, eyes as wide as the dinner plate full of Christmas cookies.

“He does exist,” Lance whimpers, before falling to the ground with a thud.

 

**Author's Note:**

> this is...110% crack and i am only a little bit sorry  
> san der closs is is the alien-ized name for santa, inspired by artemis fowl's san d'klass  
> lmk if you caught that last airbender reference ;) i just...couldn't help myself   
> the last line is from that one m&ms christmas commercial...you know the one...and even if you don't, a quick google search of 'm&ms christmas commercial' will tell you (it's the first result)  
> thanks for reading!! leave a comment and a kudos if you enjoyed :)


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